Mr. Popover lay on the floor under Aunt Amelia's dining-room table. Ellen had dropped him there not five minutes ago.
She had carried all the Popover family down to the dining room to play at ice-skating on the slippery polished table. But perhaps because it was a warm afternoon the Popovers didn't seem to feel like skating. They wouldn't or they couldn't stand upon their feet, and as for taking hold of hands and gliding gracefully about over the ice, Ellen simply couldn't make them understand how it was done.
"Perhaps we had better play that this is a swimming-pool,' said Ellen at last.
She slipped off the warm pink flannel coat that Mr. Popover was wearing, but before she could prepare the rest of the family for a dip in the waves Ellen heard Aunt Amelia calling to her.
'Ellen, where are you?.' called Aunt Amelia. 'Come upstairs. I want you.'
Ellen hastily bundled the Popovers into the skirt of her dress and ran with them up to the playroom. She knew Caroline would be far from pleased to find her neat dining-room in disorder. But Ellen was in such a hurry that she did not see Mr. Popover slide out of her dress and roll under the table, nor did she miss him when she tucked the Popovers into their Little Red House.
At first Mr. Popover didn't mind lying there on the floor. It seemed cool and restful to him after the trouble he had had trying to learn to skate. He was glad to be rid of the hot pink coat, too. But presently Mr. Popover felt lonely. Why didn't Ellen come back and pick him up? He had done his best to skate and please Ellen. It was high time that Ellen did something to please him.
A fly came walking delicately over the rug toward Mr. Popover. Here, at least, was some one to whom he could talk, and Mr. Popover had just opened his mouth to speak of the heat when into the room from the kitchen bustled Caroline.
She pulled down the dining-room shades to keep out the sun, and the foolish fly, instead of
sitting still and unseen under the table, buzzed his way over to the windowsill under Caroline's very eyes.
'Ugh, a fly!' said Caroline.
And flapping her apron she drove him away from the window, under the table, and out through the kitchen door.
As she chased little Buzz-Fuzz out of the room, Caroline spied Mr. Popover lying on the floor under the leg of the table.
' How in the world did a clothespin get in my dining room?' said Caroline.
She hadn't an idea that this was Mr. Popover. She didn't notice his little face - his two black eyes, his dot of a nose, his tiny mouth. And as Mr. Popover was dressed for the water in nothing at all but his dark brown skin, he looked to Caroline like a plain ordinary clothespin and nothing more.
So Caroline picked up Mr. Popover and carried him into the laundry, and there she dropped him into the blue-and-white striped bag, hanging on the wall, in which Caroline kept her clothespins.
'Dear me!' said Mr. Popover, as he tumbled head-first into the bag. 'Where am I going and what has happened to me?'
The other clothespins in the bag didn't say a word. They drew away from Mr. Popover and stared him up and down.
Mr. Popover gazed eagerly about, hoping to see a familiar clothespin, one who had held clothes on the line with him when he had been a boy. But though he looked from one to another, over and over again, he didn't see a single friendly face. They all seemed very young clothes-pins to him, light and clean and small, not one so old and dark and tall as he. And so it was. The clothespins who had held clothes on the line with Mr. Popover had long ago been worn out and thrown away. While, on the other hand, the new clothespins in the blue and white striped bag had no idea who Mr. Popover was and thought him a strange looking, old-fashioned clothespin indeed.
For a long time the clothespins simply looked at Mr. Popover and Mr. Popover looked back at them.
At last it was Mr. Popover who spoke first.
'Do you live here in this bag?' asked he.
'Certainly. Where else would we live?' was the answer the clothes-pins made.
Mr. Popover thought this rather rude. He hoped Velvetina and Baby Popover would never talk to strangers in this way.
But he answered politely.
'I didn't know whether you lived here or not. When I was in your business and held clothes on the line I lived in a basket, a grape-basket. I never was in a bag like this before.'
' How do you like it, now you are here? ' asked a clothespin with a saucy smile.
'Very much indeed,' answered Mr. Popover stiffly.
He didn't care at all for the manners of these young clothespins. He meant to be very particular with Velvetina and Baby Popover when once he reached home again.
'Where do you live now?' asked another clothespin, tilting his head on one side in a bold fashion as he spoke.
'In a house,' answered Mr. Popover, feeling provoked at being treated so; 'a red house too. It has four rooms, and windows with curtains, and rugs on the floor. There are chairs and tables and beds and sofas in it. It is the prettiest house for miles around. So there!'
And Mr. Popover stared as boldly at the clothespins as they stared back at him.
'If they can't be polite to me, I shan't be polite to them,' thought Mr. Popover.
Now of course that wasn't the right spirit for Mr. Popover to show. He should have remembered how surprised those clothes-pins must have been at having him come tumbling in unexpectedly at the top of their house. On the other hand Mr. Popover had tried to be agreeable, and it was really the fault of the clothespins that he felt he must speak to them so.
But the clothes-pins were now more impolite than ever to Mr. Popover. They began to whisper to one another. They spoke so softly that Mr. Popover couldn't hear what they said. Then they all spoke at once in a very loud voice, quite shouting in poor Mr. Popover's ear.
'Oh, you live in a house, do you? ' shouted the clothespins all together. 'And a red house too.
Well, perhaps you would like to go home to your red house again. It isn't good enough for you here.'
And scarcely were the words out of their mouths than they began to push Mr. Popover.
They pushed him down, down, down toward the bottom of the bag. They crowded on top of him. They stepped on his toes.
'Some one will break my leg,' thought Mr. Popover.
But there was no use saying so, for the clothespins wouldn't have cared if they had.
They pushed and pushed Mr. Popover down to the very bottom of the bag and then they began to push him over into a corner.
And once the corner was reached Mr. Popover saw what they were about. For in the corner was a hole and out of the hole they began to push Mr. Popover.
You may imagine that Mr. Popover didn't want to stay in the bag. He squirmed and he wriggled as hard as he could to get through the hole, and what with Mr. Popover squirming and the clothespins all pushing it wasn't long before Mr. Popover dropped with a click down on the laundry floor under the blue and white bag.
He was so glad to be out of the bag that he lay quite still for a moment without even thinking a thought. He didn't bother to answer when he heard the clothespins calling to him from the bag above his head, and he simply shut his eyes tight when a saucy clothespin stuck his face out of the hole and laughed to see him lying there below.
But by and by he began to wonder how he would get home again.
'I am afraid my leg is broken too' said he to himself, 'and, if it is, it will never be so straight and so beautiful again.'
He tried to roll toward the laundry door. But his leg was painful and he felt stiff and sore, so he was forced to lie still. And there he lay for hours and hours and hours. Or so it seemed to poor Mr. Popover.
He dozed and woke, he dozed and woke again.
' Suppose no one ever comes to help me home' thought he.
The house grew still. Every one was in bed. There was not a footstep to be heard.
Never before had Mr. Popover felt so lonely and so sad. He thought of his big gilt bed. He thought of Mrs. Popover and Velvetina and Baby Loo-Loo, watching for him and wondering why he did not come home.
Then, in the quiet of the laundry, Mr. Popover, tired and sore and homesick, heard a gentle scratch, scratch, scratch in the wall.
'Peanut!' thought Mr. Popover. 'It is Peanut, come to save me.'
He raised his head from the cold hard floor to look, and sure enough, out of a crack slipped Peanut, his bright little eyes peering hither and thither for a sight of his old friend.
'Peanut! I am here! Save me!' called Mr. Popover.
And a second later Peanut was slowly rolling Mr. Popover toward home.
'Go gently,' begged Mr. Popover. 'I think my leg is broken.'
So gently Peanut rolled him over the laundry floor, through the kitchen, the dining room, the library, over to the foot of the stairs.
'I shall have to carry you up the banisters' said Peanut.
Mr. Popover shut his teeth and bore it bravely while Peanut carried him by way of the banisters up the stairs.
It was only a short way to the playroom, and there were Mrs. Popover and Velvetina and Baby Loo-Loo watching eagerly at the window and hoping with all their little hearts that Peanut would find Mr. Popover and bring him home soon.
How happy they were to see him! How Velvetina and Baby Loo-Loo clapped their hands for joy!
Mrs. Popover helped Mr. Popover go straight to bed. She wouldn't let him talk until it was found that his leg was not broken and until he had been well rubbed from top to toe to take the soreness out of his bones.
' We can all thank Peanut that you are safe at home,' said Mrs. Popover, shaking the bottle
of liniment to and fro. 'He came to call and found you gone, and he hasn't rested a moment since. He has run from one end of the house to the other, looking for you. Oh, what a night I have had! I shall never forget it, never!'
'Neither shall I,' said Mr. Popover.
And sitting up in bed he told all that had happened to him that day.
'Poor dear,' said Mrs. Popover tenderly, when he had finished, 'you need a good rest. We will all go downstairs now and let you sleep.'
But as they tiptoed out of the room, Mr. Popover called Peanut back to his bedside.
'Thank you again, my friend, for saving me from those rude clothespins,' said Mr. Popover drowsily. 'But let me tell you, clothespins didn't behave like that when I was a boy.'
And then Mr. Popover, tired out by his exciting day, fell asleep.
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